SOCIETIES. 45 



was much the same as heretofore, the library had considerably in- 

 creased, and that during the past session the attendance had been most 

 satisfactory, the papers read had sustained their scientific reputation, 

 and the discussions had created the liveliest interest in the subjects 

 dealt with by tbe lecturers. The first meeting of the present session 

 had been unusually successful, there not only being a very large 

 attendance, but the specimens brought for exhibition were to be 

 numbered by thousands. Still, to make the Society a permanent 

 success depended very largely, he might say entirely, upon the mem- 

 bers themselves. He remembered with pardonable pride that one of 

 their first lectures was delivered by the late Mr. Benjamin Cooke, on 

 the Genital Armature of the Lepidoptera, and he believed this to be 

 the first notice of such a matter brought before any scientific society. 

 Nor could he speak too highly of tbe work since done by their own 

 much valued and esteemed member, Mr. F. N. Pierce, in this direction. 

 Mr. Capper thought that investigations of this nature would completely 

 revolutionise the present classification of Lepidoptera, and, if not of 

 primary importance in the differentiation of species, was certainly 

 deserving of equal consideration with the unreliable and often erroneous 

 details of wing-marking. As they understood more fully the true 

 philogenetic relationship of the various forms of animal and vegetable 

 organisms to each other, they would be led more and more to the 

 profound conviction that the definition of, not only species, but of 

 families, orders, and so on to the two great kingdoms themselves, is 

 an impossibility. So intimately related are the various forms, either 

 with others non-existent, or with those widely differing in their modes 

 of life, that lines of demarcation vanish. It is, however, only by the 

 help of students each undertaking the study of one particular branch 

 of nature that the furtherance of a true classification may be hoped 

 for. And while he would specially urge upon the younger members 

 to take up some particular line and pursue it, he would add one word 

 of caution : that, is not to get imbued with the idea that his doxy is 

 orthodoxy, and every other man's doxy is heterodoxy, but rather to 

 remember that 



" By mutual confidence and mutual aid, 

 Great deeds are done and great discoveries made." 



The President dwelt at some length upon the exhaustive treatise now 

 being published by Mr. Barrett upon the Lepidoptera of the British 

 Isles, which upon completion would be the standard work of reference 

 upon the subject, and mentioned how frequently it happened that a 

 species described as rare often turned up in the greatest profusion as 

 its habits of life became more perfectly understood. Hence he had 

 often expressed the opinion that there was, with few exceptions, no 

 such thing as a rare species. Though he would have to confess that 

 he had sometimes been guilty of giving a few pounds for a moth, it 

 had never been for one that could be called a rarity. His penchant 

 had been for varieties, due in the first instance to his having come 

 into the possession of his late friend Mr. Alfred Owen's collection, 

 who was one of the first who made a speciality of variety collecting. 

 This collection of Owen's is a very wonderful one, and he doubted very 



